


Atlas

by chronicAngel



Series: Leaves in the Summer [32]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Corpses, Gen, POV Third Person, Sad, Team, Team as Family, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-12 06:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16868227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: "I love you too much to make you do this with me," he whispers to Ino, so soft Chōji should not be able to hear it. So soft he can hardly hear it over the noise in his own head.





	Atlas

**Author's Note:**

> Well I have 7 unfinished drafts just collecting dust so let's make it eight.

"Let us help you," Ino pleads, tears still as heavy on her voice as the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He shakes his head wordlessly. He feels like if he opens his mouth he's going to vomit.

She sobs and shoves his shoulder, and he stumbles, not quite adjusted to the additional weight he's carrying. He almost drops it, and his heart stutters in his chest at the thought. "Just let me take him!" She practically screams, eyes closed tightly and fists clenched at her sides. Tears still stream down her face and he closes his own eyes and turns his head away because he can't bear to look at her like that. "Shika _please_ ," she says, putting a hand on his cheek and forcing him to turn his head toward her.

He cracks his eyes open to look back at her, dull brown meeting watery blue. "Ino," he says, voice cracking (breaking under the pressure of everything), and he almost winces at how pained it sounds. He feels numb internally, as though they could be ambushed right now and he could take a thousand kunai to the chest and hardly even notice. "I have to do this." Then, softer, "He was my sensei..."

Something in her face falls further than it already had, her eyes losing more of their light. "He was my sensei too," she says, low and dangerous and as though she, too, is trying not to shatter from the inside out. He wants to help her-- even more he wants to hold her. He can't do either, not with Asuma settled across his back. "Shikamaru, please don't make me watch you do this by yourself."

That's what hits him the hardest. Looking her in the eyes and hearing her admit how much it pains her to see him doing this. Knowing that doing this by himself is making it worse for her but letting her help him would only be more painful for him. There is no winning. Not in a world where their sensei is dead and they have to carry his dead body back to the village so he can be properly buried. Not in a world where he has to go back to Konoha and tell Kurenai that her unborn child will never know its father. Not in a world where they will have to attend a funeral for the man who has functioned as a second father to all three of them for years.

All three of them. Chōji hasn't said a word since Asuma's last ones, and Shikamaru feels selfish for not asking him to. He feels selfish for not being there for both of them even so soon after. This should be the time it is easiest to come together, and yet he and Ino have been arguing to occupy the space between them while Chōji shrinks into himself behind them, smaller than he's ever been. When he looks over his shoulder as best he can without seeing their sensei's face, Chōji has stilled, standing in place behind them while they fight with his head dipped forward and his fists clenched.

"I love you too much to make you do this with me," he whispers to Ino, so soft Chōji should not be able to hear it. So soft he can hardly hear it over the noise in his own head.

"You don't get to do that," she says, voice cold and angry. Her eyes are dark now, clouded with anger and pain and sorrow. Clouded with all of the things she shouldn't have to feel. "You don't get to leverage that against me. Not now. Not after this." _So what am I supposed to do? Sit here and let you carry a corpse that you shouldn't have even had to see? Force you to suffer like I'm_ \-- Even within his own mind, he walls that off. He isn't suffering. He certainly isn't happy, but he can muscle through this for them. For Chōji and Ino. They need someone to be a rock right now.

"Will you two shut up?" Chōji spits, still clenching his fists. Shikamaru cannot see his face for his head is dipped too far forward, but he can see dark spots appearing on the ground like fat raindrops from the sky above them are leaking through the leaves of the trees overhead and knows that his friend is crying. He wishes he could blame Chōji's shaking on his soaked clothes, but is sure he knows the true culprit. After all, they're all shivering, and the rain didn't soak through Shikamaru's flak vest before he peeled it off. "Asuma wouldn't have wanted you two to be fighting like this. Not now."

 _Not ever._ The unspoken words hang heavy in the air. It is as though it is holding the lot of them down, all staring at each other like they are in some sort of standoff. He wants to say something, but he can't unfreeze himself to do it.

Ino is the first to speak. He shouldn't be surprised. "Chōji, you can't possibly understand what we're going through..."

"Oh, can I not?" He snaps, finally lifting his head to glare at her. "He was _Team 10's_ sensei. I'm a part of Team 10. Or maybe you two forgot because you're so busy thinking of yourselves."

"That's not very fair..." Shikamaru points out, still too numb to say much more than that. _Chōji, you're a kind man who cares for his comrades_ , just keeps ringing through his head. He imagines the same must be ringing through Chōji's.

He should argue. He doesn't, and Shikamaru thinks that's much worse. He just stands there, looking like he hates himself for saying it-- looking like he hates them for making him say it. Like he hates everything because every other emotion has been temporarily crushed by the looming despair around the three of them from Asuma's death. Shikamaru thinks they all must be blaming themselves a little. He was standing right there. He watched Hidan take the final hit, stabbing himself with that giant scythe and monologuing the whole time about how excited he was to experience the pain of killing Shikamaru's sensei. And of course, Chōji and Ino arrived just moments too late, just in time to witness their sensei die on the battlefield, right in front of all of them. _Ino tried to heal him_ , he thinks, eyes sliding to his girlfriend. _She must be dying inside_.

She stares at her feet as she starts to move again, once again the first to do so, unfreezing the lot of them so they can continue on their way to the village. Chōji is next, and they make it four trees away from him before they look back and notice that he still hasn't started moving. "Maybe we should stop and rest for a couple hours. Wait out the rain." He doesn't like the idea of keeping Asuma's body away from the village any longer than he has to, but he thinks that perhaps Chōji is right, on a level. Their sensei wouldn't want them to run themselves ragged. Beyond that, _he_ doesn't want to watch Chōji and Ino fall apart right next to him while he carries the dead body of the only man who could put them back together right now.

Slowly, they come back to the tree branch he stands on, and he allows them each to loop one of Asuma's arms around their shoulders even as it isn't very effective at all for actually transporting him as they run down the trunk to the ground. Shikamaru builds the fire and tries not to think about the fact that it would normally be Asuma's job. Tries not to think about the bloodied corpse lying only a few feet away as he grabs Ino by the wrist and drags her against his chest, telling himself that it is the sort of thing a good teammate would do if his female comrade had only a soaked crop top and apron skirt to wear. Chōji doesn't even seem to notice, sitting as close to Shikamaru as he can get without actually leaning on him and staring into the fire, looking lost. _They're carrying the weight of the world too_ , he thinks.


End file.
